Where to go from here?....

[Snakex]

Hello everyone. I was wondering on what my next programming step should be where I am. I am currently a senior in highschool and I have been learning c++ for the past 2 years but only been using it in the dos shell. No win32. Now I am in my senior year and have a choice to do whatever I want (Java?,ASP?,perl?, VB?, stay with c++?) I was wondering what kind of advice you guys could give me on what to take up this year before I continue on to computer science in college. And if you do suggest a language what kind of things to do?

thanks

Oh and we have misrosoft VB J++ and wisual c as well as borland.

Bryan

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"Just remember the shark
that bit you is the one
gets to have a head full
of lead later on"

[sicko]

VC++, then some VB. That way if they (whatever college you go to) make you learn anything else like Java, of if they make you use/learn ASP you'll be covered more or less

[biosx]

No, stay away from RAD's like VB, VC++, etc.

I say stick with C++. I doubt that 2 years of high school level C++ really taught you much about the language. I mean, no offense, but I was in a high school Pascal class and a high school C++ class and they never even touched base with what actual C++ is about. That language is huge, with things like classes, operator overloads, and a whole bunch of other things that deal with object oriented programming.

I don't know C++ myself, I am waiting to finish up another language first. I only know C, but I know C very well. I plan to get mediocre Perl or Java under my belt before I move to C++. I bought a book for each, so I'm not sure which one yet.

Best bet: Stick with C++ until you get waist-deep or so into it. Once you understand C++ really well, then languages like Python, Perl, and Java will be easy to understand and learn.

In college, you will probably be forced to learn C and C++, structures of data, and inner-workings of operating systems. Then you'll probably have a choice of taking Java and maybe even a Perl class if they offer it. Note that I am really just going off what I'm studying in college. So you really don't have much to worry about.


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## root is the greed of all evil ##

[dighn]

.

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Keep it brief

[This message has been edited by dighn (edited September 13, 2001).]

[bryce777]

Lear Object Oriented Programming.

This helps you immensely in many ways. Even most college classes do not go into to any real degree. OOP in C++ is a chore, but it is also very helpful to you in many, many ways when you are doing a project of any serious scope.

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system specs:
Voodoo 5 5500 agp
tyan 1834d tiger 133 dual 800eb 133mhz FSB
via chipset kx133 via apollo pro (don't make this mistake)
256 MB RAM
2 maxtor 60gig ata100 drives
promise ata100 controller
liteon 52 truex cdrom
Linksys ethernet 10/100
Soundblaster Live! (what's so exciting about it??) value edition
300watt power supply (inwin)
about 7 pounds of fans (I'm not kidding)
Suse 7.1(god gnome is crappy compared to CDE)/win2000 based system

[Glen]

I have no idea where biosx is coming from. I'm a professional computer consultant and I disagree with most of his statements.

First of all you have to ask yourself where you want to go in the future. If you're coding for fun or as a hobby then what you need to consider is a lot less critical than if you plan to make a living someday as a programmer/analyst. If you post more details I can give you better advice.

Most important -- across the board -- is to understand general concepts: such as OO theory, basic procedural constructs, and basic operating systems.

[biosx]

Originally posted by Glen:
I have no idea where biosx is coming from. I'm a professional computer consultant and I disagree with most of his statements.

First of all you have to ask yourself where you want to go in the future. If you're coding for fun or as a hobby then what you need to consider is a lot less critical than if you plan to make a living someday as a programmer/analyst. If you post more details I can give you better advice.

Most important -- across the board -- is to understand general concepts: such as OO theory, basic procedural constructs, and basic operating systems.

What do you disagree with? I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'm just wondering.

My justification for my post is pretty simple. Almost all the kids I knew in high school in my Pascal/C++ class all thought they "knew" those langugaes. They would go on message boards and forums and say "I know C++, teach me how to program a game" and I would laugh at them. I'd laugh at them b/c I knew they didn't study the language outside of class and they didn't go very far in class.

I think the last thing that they covered in the classroom was structures and records. They didn't even get into classes in c++, ya know?

So my assumption with SnakeX (even though it might be a bad one) is that he knows a little bit of C++. How do we solve that? By sticking with C++.

I told him to stay away from RAD's (like VB, VC++, etc.) b/c I think he is way passed VB but not ready for VC++. I'm not saying stay away from them forever. Just don't move on to them, ya know?

As for the theoretical concepts of OS's and OOP. He will learn that in college. I think he should focus his senior year continuing to develop his C++ skills. Once he understands 85-90% of C++, the first 2 years of college would be a breeze.



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## root is the greed of all evil ##

[dighn]

Originally posted by biosx:
No, stay away from RAD's like VB, VC++, etc.

VC++ is not a real RAD, BCB on the other hand is

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Keep it brief

[This message has been edited by dighn (edited September 16, 2001).]

[Glen]

Almost all the kids I knew in high school in my Pascal/C++ class all thought they "knew" those langugaes.

So my assumption with SnakeX [..] is that he knows a little bit of C++. How do we solve that? By sticking with C++.


As I mentioned, a programmer's direction is determined by his future plans -- Snake didn't say. The best programmer/analysts don't learn languages per se; they learn concepts. OO concepts can be applied across the board to several languages, whether it's Java, VB, C++ or others. Futhermore "knowing" a language never comes from instruction. It comes from experience. While it's good to get one language under your belt to get a foot in the door, the conceptual ideas which apply to many languages are more important to focus on in the early stages (ie: school). The language is almost secondary, unless the location of the coder dictates that one language is more profitable than another.


I told him to stay away from RAD's (like VB, VC++, etc.) b/c I think he is way passed VB but not ready for VC++. I'm not saying stay away from them forever. Just don't move on to them, ya know?


This is entirely inaccurate; VB is not a "step down" from C++. Although salaries for VB and C++ are similar, the demand for VB coders is much, much higher; especially with DB knowledge. Furthermore, Delphi is an extremely powerful RAD tool that rivals C++ in almost all respects. RAD does not = bad. It's a common misconception.


As for the theoretical concepts of OS's and OOP. He will learn that in college. I think he should focus his senior year continuing to develop his C++ skills. Once he understands 85-90% of C++, the first 2 years of college would be a breeze.


Learning a language without understanding its constructs is putting the cart before the horse. If this still happens in schools then I feel sorry for students.

But I stick by my comments that theory is of supreme importance and RAD languages are just as valuable (and maybe even more so) in the workplace.


[/B][/QUOTE]

[bryce777]

I don't think you two disagree all that much to be honest.

You both make some pretty good points, too.

Learning any particular IDE is a total waste of time unless you are going for a position that uses that environment, and since he seems like a beginning student most likely the languages in use by the time a few more years have gone by will have changed somewhat, let alone the dev tools.

I'm not sure how it is you can think there is more demand for VB programmers or that they make the same money as C++ people, though. It is an easy language to learn, more of a scripting language than anything else. All the VB people I've known make less than me at same exp. level by a large margin too (Doing Java).

There are possibly more VB programmers than C++, and if you have little experience the pay scale may be the same jumping into either one ( a position will be harder to find in C++, though), but there is much more potental for real careers in C++ than in VB. VB is great for certain things, mostly because it is quick to cobble things together from scratch, but you can work in any domain in C++. On the low end you do not make a lot of money in C++, but it also opens up a world of extremely well-paying jobs.

Defense programmers can easily make 90k out of college for example; anyone working in difficult domain areas where few people know how to do that thing (well) tend to do very well. On the other hand as a consultant you can make good money in any language, but there is only so far you can go with business programming, and the higher-end business stuff will probably be done in Java and C++ anyhow. I know of companies that tried to scale VB applications into the millions of lines, but they are all out of business now...some say even C++ doesn't scale as well as C. It is tough to break into professional C++ programming (After years I am finally getting some contracts doing digital imaging stuff since I have done lots of academic work in this), but it is definitely more rewarding if you have good computer science and math skills .

More importantly, VB is a bad language as far as teaching concepts goes; it isn't OO at all, though some would quibble here, and it isn't really great for low level stuff, and doesn't have strong typing by default and a variety of other things in the same vein. Perhaps even more importantly, it's going to be gone soon. VB.NET is not compatible with old code at all, and is so much more like other languages I have to wonder if there is any point to it. VB has also been losing ground to Java for some time, as has C++. I think Java and C# will probably take over everything that VB is doing now over the next few years, and VB will go the way of powerbuilder.

As Glen said, though, learning concepts is the most important. Languages and even platforms will come and go, but the underlying priciples will remain the same. Still, it is nice to know one or two languages inside and out, but that takes less time than you think once you understand the theory behind it all. Even C++, Java, VB, and C# won't be dominant forever.



------------------
system specs:
Voodoo 5 5500 agp
tyan 1834d tiger 133 dual 800eb 133mhz FSB
via chipset kx133 via apollo pro (don't make this mistake)
256 MB RAM
2 maxtor 60gig ata100 drives
promise ata100 controller
liteon 52 truex cdrom
Linksys ethernet 10/100
Soundblaster Live! (what's so exciting about it??) value edition
300watt power supply (inwin)
about 7 pounds of fans (I'm not kidding)
Suse 7.1(god gnome is crappy compared to CDE)/win2000 based system

[Snakex]

Thanks for the replies guys.

What you all said is more or less true. I am a beginner and what they have tought me in highschool over the last few years has been relativly simple and small. All console apps and barely divulging into pointers because my teacher felt they were too complex.

Quite honestly I am not sure where i want to end up going with this ultimatly. looking at college right now I am making my decisions on computer science as my major and business as my minor. I want to be able to go into college with a grasp of OOP and know some about languages such as java.

I still have a full year of school and have yet to make a decision on what to do. Initially i was going to work my way through a beginners java book then skip back to some C++. At this point I dont know if I should start all over with C++ and learn it from its roots and work up to OOP with a book, or try to skip into a books such as "Programming Microsoft Visual C++ fifth Edition" (which I own).

As I stated again I have a whole school year to learn this and plenty of time every day to work int ehe computer lab. (which we just got nice new 1 ghz machines (compared to the old 500 mhz)). I generally spend about an hour and 40 minutes in it a day but other things can limit me.

Any more info would be greatly appreciated.

-Bryan